Muralists took to the street outside Steven Guilbeault’s office Friday to send an artistic reminder to the former activist and now federal environment minister that Canada must commit to strong nature protections ahead of a major biodiversity summit later this year.

Around a dozen Greenpeace activists and supporters blocked the intersection in downtown Montreal, spending several hours bringing to life a circular design celebrating the connections between natural and urban life.

They said they will continue to find creative ways to push Ottawa to bring a strong commitment to better protect nature to the United Nations’ biodiversity summit, which Montreal will host in December.

“These ambitions are going to have to be really high given the crisis that we’re facing,” said Salomé Sané, a nature and food campaigner with Greenpeace. “We’re against the wall right now, and we really have to transform all the ambition that a lot of governments have, including our own, into implementable, measurable action.”

The 15th UN meeting on biodiversity will be particularly vital because it will reset once-a-decade targets to stave off mass extinctions and environmental degradation. As many as a million species of animals and plants are at peril in the coming decades, according to a UN report.

Delayed two years by the COVID-19 pandemic, the summit was relocated from China two months ago due to that country’s ongoing restrictions to control the spread of the virus. In a preparatory session last October, more than 100 nations committed in the Kunming Declaration to put the natural world on a path to recovery by 2030.

Salomé Sané, a nature and food campaigner with Greenpeace in Montreal, poses in front of a mural seeking stronger nature protections. Photo supplied by Greenpeace Canada

The biodiversity crisis facing the planet intersects with the climate crisis, and solutions to it could help humans with mitigating and adapting to the effects of climate change, activists say.

Natural features such as urban forests can help shield neighbourhoods during heat waves, which are becoming more extreme and more frequent, and widespread tree-planting of diverse species can rehabilitate landscapes damaged by development, or in some areas, prevent landslides.

Greenpeace activists blocked the street outside Steven Guilbeault's constituency office Friday in downtown Montreal, where the federal environment minister — once a Greenpeace activist himself — will help host the UN's biodiversity summit this year.

“We need to prioritize people’s health, nature’s health, the environment’s health and not industry,” she said, noting the group's goal for a Nature and Biodiversity Act would include the legislation enshrining social justice and Indigenous rights.

Canada fell well short of its 2020 commitment to protect 17 per cent of its land and water. By the end of 2021, it had conserved 13.5 per cent, including 12.6 per cent in protected areas.

But Sané hopes Guilbeault and the rest of the Liberal cabinet commit to a strong federal law protecting nature and biodiversity, which could help spur negotiators to adopt an ambitious and inclusive global framework for biodiversity protection.

“We won’t stop pushing and pressuring the minister and the federal government ... until this (nature and biodiversity) act is passed,” she said.

Morgan Sharp / Local Journalism Initiative / Canada’s National Observer